Another foreign multinational grain company seems interested in entering the Western Canadian grain system.
According to unnamed grain industry sources, the Louis Dreyfus company, a French multinational with a Canadian subsidiary, has been seriously considering building a number of elevators on the Prairies. Sources in the Tisdale, Sask. area confirmed the company has been looking at land there and may announce construction of a facility within weeks if they choose a Tisdale location.
Louis Dreyfus Canada officials refused to comment on the rumors. The company does not own any primary elevators in Western Canada.
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The rumor of the company’s intention was also repeated in a recent grain industry newsletter.
Agriline said Louis Dreyfus Canada has budgeted $45 million for building five or six elevators in the next few years.
Louis Dreyfus Canada president Anthony Temple said the Agriline article was “neither factual nor interesting,” but would not say whether its content was actually true.
“We’d rather not have speculation or discussion and there’s no point putting out stuff that’s not factual,” said Temple.
One grain company official said there were rumors Dreyfus was investigating a number of locations in Saskatchewan, including Perdue and Biggar.
Foreign multinationals have been taking a keen interest in Saskatchewan recently. Last year American giant ConAgra announced it was building three large elevators in Saskatchewan. Archer Daniels Midland intends to buy 45 percent of United Grain Growers.
A grain industry official said the heightened multinational interest in Western Canada comes from a belief that the Canadian Wheat Board won’t survive.
“We are the last heavily regulated bastion of the industry,” the official said.
If the wheat board goes, and the Prairies are opened to direct competition in the world grains trade, the multinationals think a number of the Canadian companies won’t be able to survive, the official said.
“They basically see the Western Canadian industry as having been sheltered and mollycoddled … and really easy to take out.”
Temple said Louis Dreyfus will go right to potential customers if it decides to enter the prairie elevator industry.
“If we’re going to tell anybody about what we’re going to do, we’ll tell farmers first, directly.”
